I always had a curiosity about Texas. I had a curiosity about small-town life, although, granted, Odessa's not a tiny town.

I worked at my high school newspaper at Andover, which came out weekly, unusual for a high school paper. Then my first day at Penn I went right to the 'Daily Pennsylvanian' and pretty much spent most of my college career working both as the sports editor and then editor of the editorial page.

One of the exciting things about reporting is going to places you've never been to before.

Teams are made up of a lot of components. They're made up of hunger, they're made up of desire, they're made up of chemistry, and they're made up of emotion.

I had kind of left college. I wanted to study to be a sports teacher, but I had that little inner voice within me that said, 'You should be doing something else,' and I followed that gut instinct.

In my opinion, Jackie is the greatest female athlete ever.

It's very warm there, so we were outdoors all the time. The local people had programs for us year-round, where as kids we had the opportunity to play football, basketball, baseball, track and field - we just went from one sport to the next, year-round.

I love the individual sport stuff but the experiences I've had with some great people over 12 or 15 years are what makes is special. That individual thing: me versus the bowler is great but you get that team feeling as well and that's why it suits me so well.